Forever Girl
Originally printed in Cicada Magazine, January 2016
I’m in Germany this week, so instead of hauling my laptop around or trying to write full length posts from my phone, I’m going to repost an older story that I sold to Cicada magazine way back in 2016. It’s called “Forever Girl,” and it’s my take on a Brothers Grimm tale, which feels especially fitting as I’m wandering around the Black Forest and peering into tree hollows.
A quick story behind the story. This was my first sale to a print magazine. It released in January 2016, and I spent all Saturday driving around to bookstores to try to find a copy. I wanted to carry a story I’d written to the cash register and trade real money for real paper. After my third Barnes & Noble, I asked an employee for help, only to find out that they stopped carrying Cicada magazine as of December 2015.
Disappointing, to say the least, but I probably consoled myself with a coffee and a new paperback, so there’s that.
Forever Girl
Anna was brave, of course. Clever, too, with a mind for riddles and a pair of eyes made for reading books. When Peter went missing, she was the first to figure out who’d taken him. She and the other children spent the afternoon thinking up ways to rescue their friend. They gathered supplies, drew maps in the dirt—made bold promises while their parents cast worried looks toward the edge of the forest.
The next day, when Rissa didn’t show up for breakfast and their parents told them all to stay inside, Anna was the only one brave enough to sneak out and keep searching. By the time the others disappeared—here and there, one by one—everyone in the village seemed to have given up hope that the children would ever find their way home.
But not Anna.
Armed with a pack full of food and a change of clothes, she took the winding path into the forest. She walked all night, under old looming firs, through fog-shrouded clearings, and eventually she came to the little wooden house where the witch lived.
Unfortunately for Anna, witches are clever, too (that’s how they get to be witches). So the witch didn’t ask Anna to be brave. She didn’t give her a riddle and she never gave her a chance to open her mouth. Instead, she challenged her to a game: the kind with rules, winners, losers, and—most importantly—stakes.
“And if I win?” Anna asked.
“Then all the other little boys and girls go home, safe and sound.” The witch crossed her heart, or at least the front of her dress.
“And if I lose?”
“Then you’ll stay here with me,” said the witch. “Forever.”
***
She lost.
***
That night, Anna slept on a little straw pallet beneath the window. It was a thin, cold thing—better suited for bugs than little girls. But Anna had been cold before, and bravery did count for something, so she folded herself up as small as she could and willed herself to sleep.
In the morning the witch made blood sausage and oats with milk and cinnamon. She was old, and nearly blind, and took a long time to do anything around the house. And the way she peered at Anna’s bites made them itch all over again.
“You’ll want something for those, I suspect,” said the witch. “Wash up while I fetch an ointment.” And off she went, into her bedroom.
Alone in the kitchen, Anna thought about running away; it was, after all, the clever thing to do. But she had lost the game, and her legs did itch, so she stood by the sink and scrubbed the dishes until the witch came back with a small black bottle.
The witch gestured to a chair, and Anna sat. The two of them were quiet while the witch worked. After a minute the itching stopped, and Anna found the nerve to talk.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
“Home by now, most likely. I let them go last night.” The witch sneered. “You should’ve seen the fat one howl when I said he’d have to walk back.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said, child,” she snapped. Then, a moment later, “What would I want with seven crying children anyway?”
Anna thought about it and realized she had no idea. “So what happens now?”
The witch replaced the cap on the bottle. “We’ll have to find you some new bedding, to start. And we need firewood if we’re to have lunch, let alone dinner.”
Bedding? Firewood? Anna had never been captured by a witch before, but she thought there must be dark magic involved at some point. She watched the witch carefully as they walked down to the stream and collected rushes for Anna’s bed. She watched her while they gathered firewood, and all during the long walk back to the house.
“And now?” Anna asked.
“Go out to the garden and pick some tomatoes,” said the witch. “I’ve a mind to make soup.”
Anna thought there must be some mistake—that the old lady wasn’t a witch at all. But she didn’t know what else she could be, and she was hungry, so she went out to the garden and started picking tomatoes.
“And now?” she asked at supper.
“Now,” said the witch, soup dribbling from the corners of her mouth and back into the bowl, “you quiet down so I can eat in peace.”
And that’s exactly what Anna did.
Hours later, lying in bed, Anna thought of a more important question:
What do you want with me?
But Anna never asked, and the witch never told her.
***
Anna ran away, of course. In the middle of the night, with a crusty heel of bread she’d saved from dinner. She ran straight as an arrow for home, but when the sun rose, she found herself back in the witch’s garden, hungry and tired and just in time to start her chores.
She heard voices once, too. People from the village, her parents and neighbors come to rescue her. But no matter how long they circled the little clearing, and no matter how loudly she called to them, they never found the house and eventually gave her up for lost.
Witches, it seemed, couldn’t be found unless they wanted to be.
“Don’t you ever get lonely?” Anna asked one morning. It had been months since she’d seen her family, and she was starting to forget what they looked like.
The witch opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again and scowled instead. “Don’t you have work to do?” she shot back.
Anna stormed away, frustrated, and for the rest of the day they stalked past each other, proud as cats, meaner than sisters, not saying a word. They kept it up all the way through dinner, not so much as looking at each other across the little wooden table.
But later, when Anna went to bed, the witch stood in her doorway for a moment before turning off the lamp. Then, in a voice soft as moonlight, she said, “You get used to it, child,” and slowly closed the door.
Anna turned over and pulled the blankets over her head. I won’t, she promised her pillow. I never will.
***
After that, Anna and the witch played a new kind of game. Whenever Anna had nothing to do, she’d corner the old woman and ask, “Now what?” and the witch would give her a chore. There was always something to do, but that wasn’t the point. The point was exasperating the witch until she agreed to let Anna go. But it never worked, and eventually she sat Anna down to let her know she’d had enough.
“Listen, child. I said forever, and forever’s how long I mean to keep you. You might not know how long that is, not yet. But it’s a long, long time. And the more you think about it, the longer it’s going to take.”
“Like a kettle, you mean?” asked Anna.
“Just so,” said the witch.
And from then on, whenever Anna had nothing to do, she sat and looked out the window and thought about the word forever, and all the things it meant.
***
In the end, the witch died. Anna found her out by the well, lying in the sun with her legs bent up close to her chest and one hand curled into a fist. She didn’t know what to do, so for a while she just stood there in the sun and waited. When nothing happened, she buried the witch in a shady spot beneath a walnut tree just past the garden fence.
The next morning she left the witch’s cottage and took the path that led out of the forest. It hadn’t quite been forever, but it had been a long time, and Anna didn’t recognize the town she’d grown up in. None of the buildings were in the right places, and no one so much as waved when she walked by. She thought she saw a familiar face in the crowd, but she couldn't think of a thing to say, and the stranger turned away before she ever found the words. Night found her walking the streets of her hometown alone, and when she took the little path into the forest, no one turned to watch her leave.
Back in her house, she finished her chores and sat down in front of the fire. She knew what the word forever meant now, or thought she did, and she rolled it over and over in her mind as the embers died down to nothing. In the witch’s bedroom, she found a chest of old dresses that fit, and a box full of herbs and ointments—most of which she could name by now. And she found the book, bound in black, which is all a witch really needs.
Or at least, all she needs to get started.
***
“And if I lose?” asked the girl. “Do I have to stay here forever?”
“No,” Anna said. “Not forever. But . . . maybe for a little while.”
***
She lost.
That was an intriguing story about loneliness, "forever", and change!
I really enjoyed it! 😄
This was such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing.